1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates in general to an interface card module, and more particularly to an interface card module of a computer system.
2. Description of the Related Art
With the continual updating of computer add-on-cards such as display cards, sound cards, and network interface cards are upgraded to provide the consumers with interface cards having more versatile and more powerful functions and faster computing speed, so that the consumers can enjoy faster and more wonderful audio and visual experience with the computer. The connection between an interface card and its peripheral power device are disclosed below.
Referring to FIG. 1, a block diagram of an interface card and its power device is shown. The computer system 100 includes a motherboard 101, an interface card 103 and a power supply 105. The motherboard 101 has an interface card slot 102 disposed thereon. The interface card 103 is inserted into the interface card slot 102 through which the power is transmitted to the interface card 103 for processing operations. The interface card slot 102 may be provided with different kinds of the interface specification such as the PCI interface specification, the PCI-EXPRESS interface specification and the AGP interface specification. The interface card slot 102 of various interface specifications can provide differs power. For example, the PCI interface, the AGP interface and the PCI-EXPRESS can provide 56 Watts, 42 Watts and 75 Watts of the maximum power, respectively. Presuming the user needs to insert a new model interface card 103, which requires 150 Watts, but the PCI-EXPRESS interface card slot 102 can provide 75 Watts only. In other words, in order to drive the new model interface card 103, another 75 Watts are required. The current practice to resolve the above problem is connecting the power supply 105 to the interface card 103 for providing the additional 75 Watts. The dotted line in FIG. 1 illustrates the power line connecting the power supply 105 to the interface card 103.
However, the interface cards are continually upgraded. Particularly, the large-scaled display devices may need to have higher resolution or the display cards may need to have faster operating speed as required by computer games, therefore a single display card or multiple display cards may be disposed on the motherboard to provide more power functions and faster operating speed. Thus, the power consumed by the interface card and various circuit components of the motherboard may exceed the maximum load of the power supply. The user needs to exchange a power supply capable of providing sufficient power.
In terms of the user, whenever an interface card is replaced or augmented, the power supply needs to be replaced at the same time. It is indeed very troublesome to replace the power supply and reset the circuits of other electronic devices, and the associated cost would increase significantly. Not only will the consumers have to tackle the extra troubles, but the disposal of the usable existing power supply is actually a waste of resources.